


it's gonna get easier (with you, babe)

by mouseymightymarvellous



Series: tales of gutsy shinobi [12]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23167555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouseymightymarvellous/pseuds/mouseymightymarvellous
Summary: kakashi goes on because he knows no other way, has never known any other way.but it's been decades, now, since he's had to go it alone.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: tales of gutsy shinobi [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/712554
Comments: 22
Kudos: 121





	it's gonna get easier (with you, babe)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Florchis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/gifts).



**Day One**

It will be funny, later, that he is sitting crosslegged in front of Rin’s grave-marker, eating sunflower seeds and dropping the husks once he’s sucked the last bit of salt from them into the empty cup of tea he’d finished earlier, telling her about his week and the genin teams who he has terrorized with D-rank missions and the newest pup to be introduced into his pack, when Naruto comes to find him.

“Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto says, and just the way his voice shatters into pieces halfway through like Naruto is twelve years old again and scared and looking to Kakashi for guidance is enough to have Kakashi on his feet, worn out knees from too many years and too much damage be damned.

He catches the cup of sunflower seed husks with his toe, spilling them everywhere, but Kakashi can’t stop, can’t breathe, something is wrong wrong wrong and, as he ever has since the first time Naruto looked at him with big blue eyes brighter than the sky on a summer day after the clouds have rained themselves out, that he is in no way prepared for what he is going to be asked to do, that he will have no choice but doing, no choice but succeeding.

“Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto says, like he is twelve years old again, with an honorific he hasn’t used in almost a decade now, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you need to get to the hospital now, it’s Sakura. I’m sorry, I’m sorry—“

Kakashi doesn’t hear the rest because he is running, ghosts dogging his heels and a high pitched scream building at the back of his head, behind his teeth.

Fast enough to catch a bolt of lightning in his fist and hold it there, but never fast enough for anything else, anything real, anything that matters.

It will be funny, later, expect for how it really isn’t, how he can’t stand to eat sunflower seeds, Rin’s grave the holder of one more regret he will never outrun, Naruto’s voice cracking like lightning or Kakashi’s knees or Kakashi’s heart.

**Day Two**

The hospital is pain and fear and desperation, antiseptic and sweat and sick, death and loss and tragedy, but it is also Sakura.

(Light-Hope-Grace-Courage-Gentleness-Love.)

Even when she’s away on missions, the building echoes with the rhythms of her presence, evidence of her hand and mind.

It’s never been quiet like it is now.

The nurses are all hushed and white-mouthed as they creep past the door to the room Sakura is sequestered in in the Intensive Care Unit.

The whole building is hushed and ghostly, the silence enough to swallow the slow beeping of Sakura’s pulse projected on the screen next to her bed.

It deafens him, the silence, and because he can’t it, the noise and the lack of it, rhythms spiralling out of step, panic clawing at his ribcage, Kakashi wraps his fingers as gently as he knows how (as gently as she has taught him) around Sakura’s wrist and counts.

She cannot leave him here.

If she goes, he will hold tight and follow.

**Day Three**

“Kakashi,” Naruto says, “you need to eat and sleep and shower.”

“I’m not leaving her,” Kakashi croaks.

He cannot leave her. She is not allowed to leave him.

“Kakashi,” Naruto says, a catch in his throat and his skin pressed with long bruises under the eyes, turning him ancient and skeletal, older than his years. “You can’t waste away here. You can’t do that to her.”

Kakashi flinches.

Well, she can tell him herself.

Naruto takes another step into the room, then another, until he stands close enough to put a hand on Kakashi’s shoulder.

“Kakashi,” Naruto swears, his voice catching and his gaze hooking Kakashi under the sternum—all that blue, “I won’t let her go. Please. I won’t let you kill yourself over this, not when Sakura-chan is going to make it through.”

And, well, when—when it really came down to it—has Kakashi ever not believed beyond reason or sense or emotion that Naruto would follow through on his word until the very, bitter end?

Kakashi sags under the strength of Naruto’s grip on his shoulder, ribcage caving in.

Naruto shifts his hand to clasp him by the back of the neck.

“Go. Eat, shower, sleep for four hours. I won’t let anything happen to her. I’ve got her.” And then he smiles, like light, like grace. “It’s Sakura-chan: I am with her to the end.”

**Day Four**

Time.

Kakashi has never had enough of it when he’s needed it.

It feels cruel that it’s all he has now.

Naruto snores gently in the chair next to him.

They wait.

**Day Five**

Kakashi doesn’t want to talk about it.

**Day Six**

“Hey, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi hears in the dark, only half-awake, a crick in his neck and his back aching and his heart sore.

“You need to wake up, okay? For your Hokage, or just for me. One more miracle, yeah? One miracle for you. You’ve given the rest of us our share, and I need you to perform one more miracle. You have to wake up. We need you. You can’t go. Not yet. Not now. Not ever.”

Kakashi holds his breath.

“I know it isn’t fair, but we won’t make it without you. I need you to wake up. Please, Sakura-chan, we need you to wake up.”

Tears are salt on his lips are sitting at Rin’s grave and telling her about his week as if she is not thirty years dead and gone, as if Sakura is not dying for the mission and for the village and for her team and for every last stubborn inch in her body and for every sharp piece of soul that she has never managed to heal of herself.

Naruto weeps into his hands in the dark, unashamed and terrified.

Exhaustion and the hitching rhythm of it drag Kakashi back to sleeping.

He dreams, and there is Sakura—thirteen years old and ancient with it, terror and a stubborn chin and pink hair in her face—standing over her teammates, blade drawn and hand trembling. Kakashi runs and she stays just out of reach, scared and alone and fighting to the end. Kakashi runs and it is never enough to save her.

**Day Seven**

“Hey,” rasps a ghost.

Kakashi startles out of his doze, hands coming up instinctively to reach for her or a blade or—

“Hey,” rasps Sakura, her eyes half-shuttered, voice battered from disuse and pain, reaching for him. “I missed you.”

Kakashi chokes out a wet laugh, fingers hovering over her face, not quite daring to touch her.

Out of the other chair, Naruto startles suddenly awake, leaping to his feet.

“Sakura-chan!” he whispers. “You’re awake!”

“I wasn’t going to leave you,” she tells them, her gaze never leaving Kakashi, leaning into his touch. “You’ll never be rid of me.”

“Never,” Naruto accepts her promise, Kakashi’s throat too tight for words.

The light through the window highlights them both, golden and breathing and alive.

Kakashi lets his forehead fall down to rest on the edge of the bed, and lets them hold him together as he weeps.

Salt. And grace. And sunlight.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Kakashi Lounge's March 2020 "Lucky" Event!
> 
> **Prompts:** sunlight, hands, lucky number 7, "You make it easier when life gets hard".


End file.
